Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed the Native American Voting Rights Act Thursday, enacting a state law designed to empower Native American people to overcome the long-standing obstacles they face when they try to vote. Native voting rights advocates across the nation hope the bill will serve as a model for other states ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
The law allows Native American voters to use non-traditional addresses—or, alternatively, the address of a designated building on the Nation's land—to register to vote. Many Native Americans in tribal nations located in Washington and elsewhere live in homes on unmarked, unnumbered roads. A spate of new voter identification laws requiring voters to submit identification with proof of address have served to disenfranchise Native voters, rights advocates have said.
Among other guarantees, the law allows each tribal nation to request at least one drop box for ballots on their land, with the stipulation that the location of that drop box must be accessible to county auditors by public road. Voting rights advocates nationally have decried the distance of polling places from Native American communities, which drastically drive up the costs and sacrifices of voting.
[For more on this story by MASSOUD HAYOUN, go to https://psmag.com/social-justi...voting-rights-reform]
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